Pure Ecstasy – Well, Not Far Off…

The good thing about having the world’s biggest music conference in your backyard is – well, let’s face it, there’s always going to be a few pros to that, aren’t there?

It felt like a bit of a swizz though to travel to an annual pilgrimage-type happening like Austin’s SXSW and have by far one of the biggest ‘Wow’s turn out to be a local band. I can’t really justify why…

Just lay back and think of Austin

But at one showcase on the second day, Radar saw about five mutual friend’s bands back-to-back that were better than anything we’d listened to in pre-trip research.

Meet Pure Ecstasy, part of the city’s skulking clique of art-rock hedonists. Soon they’ll be old enough to know better than to be cluttering up friend’s porches every night eating Mexican food out of foil wrappers and smoking face-numbing weed into the wee hours. But for now at least it’s yielding awesome slow-torched Southern indie rock’n’roll, in debt to hot nights with the sheets off and the window left open, and late mornings lying in.

They’re by far the least dirgey of their heavy-souled Austin posse, though. Expect the sky to turn black from here on in…